Gringo Tour 08/09 - Part 19

We woke up (really late again) and struggled to get to the hotel restaurant for breakfast before 11am...

Ant had made a bit of a snap decision and decided that we should check out "Teotihuacan" (lordy don't ask me to pronounce that!) - which is a huge pre-Aztec pyramid city thingy about an hour and a half out of Mexico City. Because the day was almost half-over - we made a dash for the nearest metro stop (for us it was "Insurgetntes" (which I kept thinking it was about "insurgents"..?) which was just at the other end of the Zona Rosa to where we were staying.

We headed out to one of Mexico City's big f##k-off bus stations (they are sort of like the wicked which of the west/north/south/east - because I think there is one for each in Mexico City). It was almost like a (run-down) airport - with heaps of gates and stuff (even with the same hokey security as in some of Mexico City's tourist attractions). We managed to find the bus company who operated over 30 trips to Teotihucan and we bought tickets (which were about $4-5AUD each for a 90 min bus ride - bargain) and the next bus was leaving in just 5 minutes.

We made a dash for the gate (which was relatively easy to find) and a guy pulled us over and plonked us on the right bus. There were a fair amount of gringos on the bus (not surprisingly as this is one of the big tourist attractions in Mexico). The bus ride was initially slow at getting out of the city - but once we were on a freeway - it was really interesting seeing a bit more of Mexico. Parts of it felt a bit like Peru (eg: poor areas with cookie-cutter house square thingys) but I really digged all of the colourful ads along the side of the freeway and houses. At first - I thought it was all Mexican graffiti but upon closer look - they were all giant colourful ads painted onto the sides of walls and the freeway.

After our bus ride - we arrived at one of the four entrances to the Teotihucan ancient city doh-dad. The entry prices were a complete steel (at under $5AUD a pop) and there was a free loo which was just beyond the front gate. You probably seen all of those crazy "American Standard" toilets all through the states (with the 87 liters of water spewing out of them upon a single flush)... Well at these toilets they had the "Nigerian Standard" urinals - which seemed to have 87 liters of urine in each urinal just sitting in there -waiting for you to pee into it and splash it around everywhere like a p### party.... Neeocye...

Teotihucan was an ancient city, which was "re-discovered" by the Aztecs who believed it was a sacred site. The site remained hidden from the Spaniards until the 16th century and according to Don't Know - there are still archeological digs around the area unearthing things. There are several huge "f##k-off" pyramids and the Pyramid of the Sun is the third biggest pyramid on the planet (although it is only half the height of the pyramids in Giza). There is another impressive pyramid (Pyramid of the Moon) where you can get amazing Kodak Moment shots (maybe that Kodak sponsored - Honey I Shrunk the Audience has rubbed off on me ?) of the complex. This was the first tourist site which had plenty of Gringo tourists (everything yesterday was filled with Mexicans). Not only was it filled with tourists but also filled with really god-f###ing annoying touts who had these gimmicky flute things which sounded like eagles or pumas. I had seriously thought about getting out my Ipod and drowning out all of these a##holes with it.

Ant and I first trekked up the Pyramid of the Sun where we noticed that many of the locals and tourists are big, fat and lazy and couldn't really handle climbing up the pyramid with taking excessively long breaks... Come to mention it - it felt like a lot of Mexicans had inherited the "fat genes" from Americans because a lot of them were fairly portly. It had only taken us about 5 minutes to climb to the peak (it would have been shorter if they hadn't been big queues to get up to the top).

We then walked down the "Avenue of the Dead" - which the Aztecs had mistakenly thought that all of the mini-structures around the street were tombs... We were going to rename this avenue - the "Avenue of the Touts"...

We climbed up the smaller Pyramid of the Moon (which you were only allowed to climb half way up) and got some great shots (touch wood) of the city. There were a couple of smaller structures that we had explored including a palace which had pre-hispanic murals (must have been in their genes to paint murals).

We headed down to the less touristy end of the complex (where the touts were thinning out...) and checked out a small temple/pyramid on the south side which had some awesome/still intact sculptures.

We headed to the general vague direction to where LP said there would be a bus. Luckily - there was a friendly local who helped showed us where the "Autobus" stop was. We only had to wait 5 minutes before the next bus arrived. It was a much shorter trip back to the Bus Station in town (less traffic on the roads maybe??).

We were dead hungry (was about 4pm and hadn't eaten anything since breakfast) - and I stumbled across a quasi-asian style bakery - where you grab those trays and tongs and pick random bread rolls and cakes which might be filled of pig's testicles or something. Luckily - the Mexican version wasn't too extreme - and we settled on some breadrolls and donuts for lunch (mmm.. nutrition).

We had a chill/work-out back at the hotel - where Ant chilled out and I went and made use of the free gym at the hotel. It definitely wasn't the american standard of gymes - but it was probably better than most hotel gyms back in Australia. Plus - our hotel gym had a pretty good view of the city and the neeeoyce sunset (if you could see the sun through the smog).

Again we had a latino-time dinner. Instead of going to Sambons again - we decided upon a strange "Argentinean/Mexican" fusion restaurant which was more like Latin American confusion.... We both had some steak tortilla thingys which were OK and a couple of beers. Again - we had to use our ESP powers to call for the waiters to give us our GODDAMN BILL!!!! Does all restaurants in Mexico want you to occupy their tables in restaurants for extended periods of time so they don't make as much money as they would giving people their bills faster so they can pay and vacate the premises only for new customers to take their place... or something.

We decided to have a bit of explore of the Zona Rosa nightlife - and decided to go to a gay bar which was a total mistake (some freakish old man walked up to Ant and I (about a foot away) and didn't stop staring at us... At that point - I quickly finished my $2AUD beer and we headed to the "Papi Fun Bar" which could have been one of the world's most smallest and visible gay bars (all in a space no bigger than my living room and everything has big glass windows so you can see what is happening from the outside. We had a drink or two and befriended a group of Mexicans (Edgar, Diego and Marco) - who were all super friendly.... Edgar was a super keen Kylie fan (who knew her old 80s stuff) and was a part-time x-dresser... Marco was easy to fire up on any topic (eg: BA in Argentina is europe like, Britney suxs) and Diego was a little rusty at the old engrish but nice enough to leave us with his hotmail address. After a couple of drinks - it was 5am already. We exchanged facebook profiles (Edgar and Diego are now facebook friends with us)... and farewelled each other (outside the American Embassy where Marco mooned the embassy guards...) and we headed back for a bit of shut-eye at the hotel... Until next time...